Sol Invictus
The Killing Tide

"The Killing Tide", released in 1991, contains unreleased tracks and revisitations of tracks already present in "Trees in Winter". So, a feature-length EP rather than a truly new album.

Having made this necessary clarification, "The Killing Tide" is truly a good work: bolstered by a finally professional production and purged of the naiveties and imperfections that still plagued its crude predecessor ("Trees in Winter", indeed), the new musical offspring of the Invincible Sun better focuses Tony Wakeford's artistic vision, now more than ever alone in leading his own crusade. With Ian Read's departure, the more distinctly medieval influences wane: now the music of Sol Invictus is clearly tuned to the frequencies of uncompromising apocalyptic folk, which is something else entirely: guitar, voice, and atmospheric synthesizers dominate everything, while the refinements are left to the class of Sarah Bradshaw (cello), David Mellor (trumpet), and Karl Blake, who will also have the opportunity, like Wakeford, to refine his style (his distorted bass picking will become a defining feature of Sol Invictus' folk).

Conceptually as well, Sol Invictus' poetics become more clearly outlined: Tony Wakeford, a critical observer of history, in "The Killing Time" extracts himself from the blood and pain that have always traversed humanity's evolution-devolution and collapses, exhausted, titanic, disillusioned on his throne of mud and bones to witness the unending struggle for existence that fatally unfolds under his eyes. His figure reminds us not a little of the mythical Kurtz from "Heart of Darkness," demon, beast, and god at the same time, in a world of madness and violence.

"You have squandered all in your greed and inexhaustible vandalism ... My path is towards the beasts...". With this battle cry taken from the thoughts of Austin Osman Spare, Wakeford delivers his ruthless vision of Nature and History: "Nature is based on killing, on a hierarchy of Killers, and so we are. Our institutions; our Churches; our Monarchies; our Dictatorships, and our Democracies, are built on Murder, are built on Killing... HISTORY'S SEA HAS A KILLING TIDE".

The first four tracks are among the best things to emerge from Wakeford's tragic pen: "Like a Sword", urgent and combative as only the early Sol Invictus knew how; "In a Silent Place", a suffocated, painful, heartrending song of universal sadness; "Let Us Prey", a solemn instrumental where a mournful trumpet and a lost cello wander in the desolation of a ruthless pre-Adamic era; the title-track, finally, a classic that certainly needs no introduction.
Negligible, however, for those already in possession of "Trees in Winter," is the remaining portion of material: opened and closed by two brief piano inserts that reference each other ("Figures on a Beach" and "A Figure on a Beach"), the revival begins with "The Man Next Door is very Strange" which is nothing more than a re-proposition of "Sawney Bean" under false pretenses, this time sung by Wakeford himself who evidently wanted to reclaim a great Sol Invictus classic (which originally found embodiment in Read's voice). Awful, however, is the remix named "Our Lady of the Missing Presumed Dead" which desecrates the magnificent "An English Murder", distorted by hallucinogenic synths and post-production effects. It is followed by "The Wild Hunt - Something Grim this Way Comes", an instrumental reprise of the already re-proposed "Sawney Bean".

The attempt to reinterpret old tracks and blend them into the conceptual fabric of the new work is appreciable, somewhat less is the outcome, which instead sounds like a questionable (just think of the absurdity of the titles themselves) and unnecessary distortion of episodes that already made their excellent impact on "Trees in Winter". Despite this disappointment, "The Killing Tide" is a decidedly recommendable episode, an indispensable purchase for the band's fans and a top-quality work for anyone wanting to sample Wakeford's art at the height of his inspiration.